Theme Park Dining Beyond Burgers and Turkey Legs

The bad reputation of theme park food has been, let’s face it, pretty well deserved: All the negative aspects you might find at a state fair — sugary, greasy and overpriced — minus any of the quirky homespun charm. Mass-produced and joylessly prone to corporate tie-ins, it’s the ultimate iteration of the theme park’s overriding mission: to separate you from every last dollar in your pocket.

But there’s good news on theme park menus. While the old standbys are still standing by, there’s been a shift recently toward food that’s actually, well, edible. Your old favorites are still there: funnel cakes, cotton candy, turkey legs. But there are some decent restaurants now, too, some of which border on the downright respectable. I sampled a bit of everything on an impulsive three-park tour that included Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal Studios in Southern California, as well as Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Here are some rides worth sending your taste buds on.

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Fireman’s Brigade Barbecue at Knott’s Berry Farm.CreditBeth Coller for The New York Times

Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park owes its success directly to the boysenberry, a hybrid berry that would soon become the family’s calling card. Walter Knott began propagating the berry and his wife began selling chicken dinners on the property of their modest farm. By the 1940s the dinners had become so popular that Knott created a small Old West town to entertain waiting diners and voilà — what they call “America’s first theme park” was born.

We’ll start with the bad news: Many of the vendors at Knott’s sell rehashed variations of the same combinations — burger, hot dog, chicken sandwich, fries — despite having enticing names or being situated in different themed areas in the park. For example: I ordered a Western BBQ bacon burger ($8.79 à la carte, $15.99 in a combo with fries and drink) at Sutter’s Fine Family Fare in Ghost Town. It had an unappetizingly stringy texture, and didn’t make up for that in flavor.

So I moved on, walking through Camp Snoopy over to the Grizzly Creek Lodge. It was a nice space with a large dining room, and I was excited. But the menu was almost identical: burger, hot dog, chicken sandwich. As was the menu at Coasters Diner. At Boardwalk Barbecue there wasn’t a barbecue item anywhere on the menu. No matter where I went, it was just the same burger, hot dog and chicken sandwich. (To be fair, sometimes there’s a pizza, and sometimes chicken tenders. But it’s all more or less the same menu.)

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A fried chicken dinner at Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm, which ends with boysenberry pie and offers plenty of food for the money.CreditBeth Coller for The New York Times

It wasn’t all bad — I had some good carne asada nachos ($10.59) from Cantina in Fiesta Village. The guacamole that topped them was flavorless, but the meat was great. It was hot and tender and had a peppery quality almost like jerky. I also managed to find some actual barbecue at Fireman’s Brigade Barbecue. Despite the disgruntled employee manning the grill who was cursing sotto voce while cooking the ribs, turkey, corn and garlic toast that I ordered, the food was decent. The giant turkey leg ($10.29), in particular, was the best I sampled at all three parks if only because it was the only example that wasn’t overwhelmingly salty.

The good news is that Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant, which closed last year for renovations, is open again, and it’s well worth your time. The best part? You don’t even have to pay for park admission ($47 online, by far the cheapest of the parks I visited) to go; the restaurant is right outside the gates of the park. Service is good (I sat at the bar), and the décor is appealing, if trying a little too hard: wooden tables, lighting fixtures made with old ladders and Mason jars. Let’s call it “modern barn.”

I had a traditional fried chicken dinner for $21.99 that included four pieces of fried chicken, a small dish of mouth-puckering cherry-flavored rhubarb, cabbage with ham, six buttermilk biscuits, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a slice of boysenberry pie. It’s an absurd amount of food for the price, and most of it was quite good. The chicken was hot and juicy; the biscuits were warm and buttery. There’s also a shop next door called Chicken To-Go where you can get many of the menu items for takeout, as well as large chicken buckets (22 pieces with sides for $50.59) for parties.

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The Grist Mill at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., sells hot cinnamon bread.CreditAllen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

When I flew into Knoxville, Tenn., and picked up my car from the rental kiosk, Paula behind the desk asked me what I was doing in town. I told her I was there to go to Dollywood. “You came all the way from Los Angeles to go to … Dollywood?” she said with a disbelieving stare. I nodded. “Well, you should go see my boyfriend. He works there. He can give you recommendations.”

Maybe, as a local, she had become slightly immune to its charms. But I found the 150-acre park pretty delightful. Dollywood, founded in 1961 as Rebel Railroad, has a very light, “Up With People” kind of vibe. The music is bouncy and cheerful, and the employees positively exude classic Southern charm, down to the parking lot tram driver, who called out after us, “I hope you make memories worth repeating, and I hope you love every moment.”

I don’t know about memories worth repeating, but I definitely found food worth re-eating. Dollywood excels, as one might expect, in traditional Southern fare. The wonderfully titled Granny Ogle’s Ham & Beans is named after the grandmother of one of Dolly Parton’s close friends. I ordered the Fronie’s Sampler for $15.99, which came with pot roast, pulled ham, mashed potatoes, turnip greens and a blackberry cobbler. The meats were very good — not overcooked but still very tender in their own juices.

I managed to find Paula’s boyfriend, Reid, working at a small gift kiosk and asked where he thought I should eat. “Personally, I think Backstage has the best food in the park,” he said. “Get the fried green tomatoes.” The Backstage restaurant tries to recreate the look and feel behind the proscenium at a place like the Grand Ole Opry House or Ryman Auditorium. There are lots of old knickknacks, chests, ropes, lights and doors marked “Prop Master.” I sat down at a table and ordered the Coca-Cola-infused ribs, along with some fried green tomatoes and a banana pudding for dessert.

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Fried green tomatoes from the Backstage restaurant at Dollywood, where you can also get banana pudding.CreditAllen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

The ribs ($18.99) were solid but unspectacular — a bit dry, and the Coca-Cola marinade gave them a confusing sweetness. The fried green tomatoes ($6.99) were better: generous slices perfectly fried in a cornmeal batter (which was a bit thick for my taste, but I picked some of it off). The banana pudding made me feel like an 8-year-old back at my babysitter’s house — sweet, creamy pudding with big chunks of banana, mixed with crumbled up Nilla wafers and topped with Cool Whip. I noticed the name tag of my nice waitress read “Koke.” “My mama named me after a Coca-Cola bottle,” she said. “And when she went down to the courthouse, she spelled my dang name wrong!”

Other areas where Dollywood really shone were with the casual finger foods. The funnel cake ($6.99) was the best of the three parks I visited — crispy on the outside, hot and moist on the inside, with a generous dusting of powdered sugar. The cinnamon bread ($5.99) from a place called the Grist Mill was a loaf of sloppy decadence. About the size of my two fists together (an incredible bargain, by the way), the loaf, fresh out of the oven, almost burned my hands through the paper bag I received it in. The hot bread, dripping with a syrupy butter mixture, had a nice savory component to it as well, balancing out the sweetness.

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Three Broomsticks restaurant at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood.CreditBeth Coller for The New York Times

Let’s cut to the chase: At Universal, it’s all about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which opened last year to epic lines and mobs of robe-wearing, wand-wielding fans. It accomplishes an ambitious goal: to make you feel as if you’ve been transported to another place. The buildings are beautifully designed; the shops are carefully done with great attention paid to detail. A woman selling small stuffed animals called Pygmy Puffs rang a bell when a little girl bought one. “Attention everyone,” the employee said. “Casey here is adopting a Pygmy Puff, and he’s going to a wonderful home. Can I get a round of applause?” People clapped, and the little girl positively beamed.

Three Broomsticks is the main place to get grub, and it’s really the only one worth your time — and that applies to the entire park. (Exception: There are a couple of decent places in the “Simpsons”-themed area, including some very respectable $8.99 carnitas tacos from the Bumblebee Man’s Taco Truck.) I was again impressed with the décor: old lanterns and caldrons abound. (Members of the staff are all dressed like Dobby the house elf, though — I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.) My dining companion and I made a couple of friends in line and decided to order the Great Feast for four people ($54.99). It was one of the best dining bargains of any of the three parks I visited, and I would go so far as to say that it’s objectively a good value — in or out of a theme park.

You get an enormous fresh salad with Italian dressing that is easily enough food for six people. That’s followed by the main event, a gargantuan tray of food brought out by one of the cooks. “Here’s the Great Feast,” she said, smiling, “magically prepared for you guys.” I asked her, “Do they make you say that?” She smiled even bigger. “Yes, they do!”

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Three Broomsticks restaurant at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter serves the Great Feast, which feeds four, with food to spare.CreditBeth Coller for The New York Times

On the tray were four big ears of corn, a mountain of roasted red potatoes with grilled onions, four slabs of ribs, a big roasted chicken and various steamed vegetables. The undercooked veggies were the only thing that was underwhelming. Everything else was excellent. The ribs were moist and juicy, the meat coming effortlessly off the bone. The roasted chicken was also tender, and flavored nicely with pepper, lemon and garlic. The potatoes were soft and savory, dripping with butter.

The accompanying drinks were almost as good as the food itself: Butterbeer, the drink made famous in the novels, is creamy and indulgent. It’s essentially cream soda topped with a thick layer of “foam” that resembles melted ice cream. The pumpkin juice is also tasty — refreshing and not overly sweet, it‘s like a nice spiced apple juice.

“Wow,” said our new friends, Amy and Kyle, through mouthfuls of chicken and ribs. “This is pretty impressive.” The kitchen staff may not actually be able to work magic. But with the respectable, decently priced fare they’re churning out, they just might fool you for a second.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page TR4 of the New York edition with the headline: Trading In Turkey Legs for Better Fare. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe